Saturday, 6 December 2008

The customer service industry in North America.

I'm pretty polite in the UK, but customer service over here is a completely different ball game. I have adapted very quickly to saying "you're welcome" and "have a great day" whenever I'm serving anyone at work, and it just comes out automatically wherever I am now. I keep telling Seamus he's welcome in conversation at home now. And asking everyone how they are, incessantly, every time you see them. It is definitely different to customer service at home.

One thing I hadn't anticipated was how much people would like my accent. I am told five times a day how "cute" my accent is. People over here seem very interested in englishness. Where am I from, how long am I here, would I stay here forever? People also seem to think it's charming when I accidentally say pounds instead of dollars, chips instead of fries, and they spend a lot of time asking me to say words like tournament because apparently I say it in a cute way (who knew?).

Last night we had a group of 30 staying in the hotel for their company Christmas party. They had a seven-course dinner with different cocktails for each course. I am now a master of cocktails. Having to make 26 cocktails in three minutes will do that for a girl. It must have been an expensive bill, with all those rooms, all that food and all that alcohol. And they say we're in a recession!

1 comment:

The whole 'cute accent' thing is unlikely to stop the entire time you're there. We heard it pretty much every day were in America! I actually found sometimes people weren't listening to WHAT I said, just HOW I said it.. can be a bit of an obstacle.